While the iPad can certainly be debated as a product, people on the internet are discussing not the product, but the shift devices like the iPhone and iPad represent: a shift away from a computer being accessible to it being something closed and impenetrable. Is this a future we want for ourselves?

So, if Microsoft makes their browser default on a "computer", that's reprehensible and anticompetitive, but as long as Apple's is an "appliance", then they can do whatever they want, including bundling their browser and locking out all competition using cryptographic technology?

Bender pointed out that MS has monopoly status within the market which means they have extra scrutiny since the company is capable of very real harm to that market. Apple, while retaining full control of there product lines, does not have monopoly status within the markets they sell to.

Here's the other difference: Apple is a retailer, Microsoft is an OEM. Apple sells a final product that happens to include there in house produced OS. They don't sell OEM parts to a third party who will then assemble the final product. One could compare Apple to Dell or HP but comparing MS and Apple, though fun, is barely valid even in the marketing commercials.

So, Apple telling Apple what software it can include on it's hardware; fine.

Microsoft telling Dell what browser and OS platform it can include on it's hardware; not fine.